New Casting & a One Day Wonder Army

      This week I completed a mold I had started week before. When casting figures from this new mold, I decided to try to use a melting pot bought years ago. I had little success using it and put it aside, using a hot plate setup instead. As I have stopped using scrap metal, and knew the melting point of the metal, and after doing some research online about the Lee pot, I decided to give it another go.  It worked as I hoped it would, and got good usable figures. The pouring spout takes the trial of pouring consistently out of the equation.

    On Wednesday night I decided to make a mold using the Peter Laing marching Guard figures. As the rubber being used cures in 8 hours, the next morning when I got up, before going to work, I completed the mold. My plan was to try to do some casting after work, and the mold should be complete at that time.  It was also going to give me an idea if the pot would work well with 15mm molds. I am happy with the results. I believe the new pot keeps the temperature of the metal consistent, as the problem with the metal "crystalizing" didn't seem to happen.

   After casting the figures, they were brought up for trimming and basing. I completed 18 figures, enough for 4 infantry units and one artillery unit. So in a 24 hour period, the mold was completed, the figures were cast, cleaned and based. And all that in spare time on an average work day. I do believe if I had set aside a day, I could have in that 24 hour period, produced from making the mold to final painting, a complete army.

The melting pot back in use. I stopped using it when the pour spout blocked up and I couldn't get it cleared out. I believe debris and paint from the scrap metal being used got into it, along with metal that probably wasn't melted to the right temperature.

Three of me new figures for use in Backyard Wars.

My new One Day Wonder army. The cavalry figures and general are original Peter Laing figures.

The figures receiving their toy soldier paint jobs. As I was painting them, I realized that they were receiving the same uniform colors that some of my Airfix Guards figures were painted with. I had painted the Airfix figures that way, thinking they would look like Napoleon's Imperial Guard, that could be used with my Airfix French Napoleonic figures.
 I have decided that these figures will represent my old toy country, Shiak, in future games.